Towards a New Geometric Metric for Sustainability Assessment

摘要

This paper puts forth a novel geometric metric for assessing sustainability of a product. The purpose of the novel geometric metric is to present sustainability aspects of a product, for its entire life-cycle (material production, manufacturing, supply-chain, use and disposal), to design engineers in a readily comprehensible way. Achieving sustainability is critical for minimizing the detrimental effects caused by global warming due to modern equipment manufacturing, use and disposal. Impact of various products on the environment, society and economy are primarily locked in the design stage of the product. Therefore engineers need a comprehensive metric to be used at the design stage for designing a sustainable product. The paper first reviews sustainability metrics and then focuses on the geometric metrics for evaluating sustainability aspects of a product. Based on the concept of areal coordinates, this paper constructs a preliminary geometric metric for sustainability assessment.